Logan’s sword flashed and he struck the head off. It burst apart the ground into clumps of rotting flesh.
For a moment, the beast froze. It didn’t move a muscle, and as the moment stretched, the Cenarians suddenly cheered, thinking that Logan had somehow killed it.
Then the troll raised its arms to the skies and bellowed a roar that shook that very ground. Two of its eyes fixed on Logan, and the enormous bone scythe drew back.
71
Vi brushed back Kylar’s hair with gentle fingers. Before them, the ferali had transformed into a troll and was wading through the Cenarian lines. She barely saw it. She was staring at Kylar’s dead face. For the first time, she realized how young he looked. Kylar was serene, beatific. Vi had murdered him. She’d delivered immortality to the Godking.
Something splashed on his cheek. Vi blinked. What the hell? The drop slid down his cheek to his ear. She blinked again, more rapidly, refusing to believe she was crying. What had Sister Ariel said? Something about being an emotional cripple? Vi looked at her tear, glimmering on Kylar’s ear, and wiped it away. That bitch called me stupid.
And so she was. Her finger froze.
It hit Vi like a warhorse at a full gallop. She hadn’t escaped Sister Ariel at all.
Suddenly, Vi couldn’t breathe. She saw the Sister’s trap now, laid out for her in every word Ariel had spoken. She saw the bait and the consequences. It wasn’t escape, but it was escape from the Godking.
It only required Vi to do something worse to Kylar than anything Hu Gibbet had ever done to her. She put an unsteady hand into a pouch and found the box right where she’d put it. She opened the box and looked at the Waeddryner wedding rings tucked inside.
If she did this, it would be like rape, and Vi knew rape.
Yet it was the only way. Sister Ariel had the Niles plant all the information Vi would need. They’d told her she needed to show “an outward sign of an inward change” to break the compulsion, a transfer of loyalties. They talked of the powerful magic in some of the old rings, how they held a type of compulsion spell. And the Bitch Wytch had dangled the carrot herself: quick advancement, private tutoring, being important.
Vi didn’t care. She wouldn’t do this for herself. She’d do it because if she didn’t, the Godking would become immortal. Vi would become his pet assassin, a one-woman plague slaying any who dared defy him. She’d do this for those poor bastards getting eaten alive on the battlefield. She’d do this because if she didn’t, Kylar would die, truly die.
But he would never forgive her.
She ran her fingers through Kylar’s hair. His face looked cold and still, judgmental. She would escape; she would change, but Kylar and Elene would pay the price.
The earring pierced her left ear, and the hoop melded together seamlessly. The pain made her eyes water. Tears streaming down her face, she pierced the other ring through Kylar’s ear.
A rush of warmth lit her from head to toe. She felt the compulsion shrivel and burst apart. That was nothing compared to the sudden longing she felt. She gasped. In her very skin, her stomach, her spine, she felt Kylar. He was healing, but he was hurt so badly it made her ache. Her fingers tingled where she was touching his face. He was more handsome than ever. She wanted him to know her. She wanted to confess the truth and be forgiven and have him love her back. She wanted him to hold her, to touch her cheek, to run his fingers through her hair and—
That thought exploded against everything she’d ever known. Vi pushed Kylar roughly out of her lap and staggered to her feet. The rush of emotion was too much, too intense, too vast to read, yet it didn’t feel alien. It didn’t feel counterfeit. It felt like her love was being purified, the coal blown on so that it flared up into fire. It left Vi gasping. She could hardly bear to look at Kylar. But she was free. The compulsion was gone.
Free! Free of the Godking. On the floor, a lone horseman stood in front of the massive troll. Vi took her dagger and staggered toward her father. She grabbed his body and made him stand. She shook him.
“Father! Father!” someone was screaming. Who the hell was screaming that on the battlefield?